Sounds like we've got a lot of work to do before the cup. The population of Iceland is what, about 250,000? Grump!
How we looked A win is nice but we did not look that great. Seemed that we had trouble stringing together more then 3 or 4 passes on many occasions and on other occasions, the passing looked alright. I guess what bothered me was the high number of unforced errors. I'm talking about poor passes that had nothing to do with pressure from Iceland. If not for the early goal (which ESPN2 missed, thank you very much) this game could have ended 0 - 0.
In general it is either screened hard shots from outside or a series of quick short acurate inside passes to draw the defense in followed by a snap shot or a pass on an angle for a shot. Th US has the players and the skill and the power to do either but they are WAY to easy to read for either to work. To see bunker breaking at its best see the Brazil men's team. (most of the time) They can usually break even top flight bunkers. The US women are a skilled, realitive to the women's game, as th Barzil men are realitive to their game and the US should be able to break all but the best bunkers.
As of several mins ago I did not see any on Yahoo! Sports. ----------------- Post match article from today's Charleston Post & Courier: http://www.charleston.net/stories/021703/spo_17soccer.shtml
I wonder if USA's formation is hurting their ability to score? With that lineup last night you've got only two forwards, which means the other numbers in the box are midfielders. Other than Wagner and Lilly our midfielders aren't much of scoring threats.
Speaking of Abigail... I have asked this question in the Beulah forum but would like to get everyone's perspectives here. Other than Abigail, the only tall "powerful" forward that Heinrichs has brought in on a regular basis is Parlow. I guess you could also make an argument that Welsh and Fotop have been given chances. But if you were to use Parlow as the benchmark for a big forward..in what areas is Abigail lacking in? And if Parlow was not to be used as the benchmark...what are Parlow's strengths/weaknesses compared to Abigail's strengths/weaknessess compared to (insert other big forwards here). (Please no long diatribes...format your response with bullet points or something along those lines.)
Maybe Abby has played herself out of the picture by making mental lapses on the field. I was watching some old games on tape and noticed several occasions where Mia or some other player got mad because she didn't finish her near post runs.
I think the weather hurt the quality of the game last night. One commentator said the field was pretty slick. I thought the US played the ball out of their back a little too soon. They might have held it up a little to draw them out. Iceland had some good players but a lot of them looked heavy and slow.
I was expecting to see Devvyn Hawkings along with Wambach Well, Like Ape would say..I guess. Devvynn doesn't have home field expierence and Wambach Iternational experience. It was a good game in spite of the rain and cold. Thanks's Aly Wagner for that pass. (again) My player of the Match was Thora Helgadottir! keeping Island from embarresment.
Report from The Seattle Times... Hamm's early goal helps U.S. women's team defeat Iceland Iceland’s Asta Helgadottir, light jersey, tries to steal the ball from Julie Foudy (11) of the United States during the first half yesterday in Charleston, S.C.
Missing starters I would like to repeat what I said few days ago. Iceland were missing 7 starters that were playing in the WC qualification. This was due to injury and some of them were occupied with work, they are not proffs like the USA players. I do not know if you realize how this effected the team from a country with population of 280.000. I know Iceland has very good players but they have not played a match since September and that is just not enough.
Yep, Nomar was indeed spotted in town. Unfortunately, Mia's peon ex is over in the Middle East preparing for war. She did manage to dump him just in time.
Heinrichs' team would continue to suck against teams who totally bunker down if she sticks with her very, very unimpressive "diamond" midfield formation. Heinrichs adopting the formation just because it works well for some European teams annoys the hell out of me.
What a dreadful game! The referee was horrible, and should have not only awarded the penalty v. Pearce but Parlow should have been sent off for the elbow to the face of #10. The announcers are so blinded with patriotism that we rarely get any constructive criticism, ever! They're not commentators, just salesmen. April's tactics once again have to be questioned. Why in God's green earth are we still playing with two forwards against a team with 10 players behind the ball? Why do we need to play with four at the back when other teams rarely play with more than one true striker? Where is the swagger, the skill, the brilliance that once made the US a great team to watch? Hucles and Lilly rarely got into the box, so Wagner had very few options. Mia still works harder than anybody else, but Parlow showed her us her weaknesses time and time again. The goal was great if you didn't mind seeing it on replay for the first time. What kind of crowd did we all expect, really, during a rainstorm in the South. In spite of the horrible match in San Diego, why aren't these games being played in WUSA cities to help drive ticket sales for Year 3? US soccer needs the WUSA to thrive, for the sake of the national team. Don't think so? Ask Bruce Arena what a strong domestic league means to him. Having coached and supported women's soccer at every level for the past 20 years, I am sad to see these kind of results from our WNT in a WWC year. If we are going to use these games to play kids, then play the kids. If we are preparing for the WWC then play the best players (Millie, Mac, Scurry, Fawcett) and get results! Until then I wish ESPN would just stop showing these games. Better yet, put them on PPV and let the federation see how much we care about these games.
I don't really think that the hand ball should have been called since it was ball to hand vs hand to ball. Also #3 was not really under preasure which would perhaps have caused her to actually intend to help herself via a hand ball. On the other hand we probably should have been playing with ten players after Parlow's attack on the Iceland player. It seems that it was a little early in the match to be reacting so violently to admittedly some questionable defense. I'm glad she didn't catch that women in a more vulnerble spot as she could certainly have been seriously injured.